Festival: Wavelength Day 2 - Sold Out!!!!!
Venue: The Garrison

Night 2 of Wavelength 16 saw us back in The Garrison
on a night that saw the venue packed to capacity for
good reason. From start to finish another excellent
evening saw everything from art being created to a
spell bound crowd sitting on the floor of The
Garrison…

The combination of both audio and visual elements were
showcased by the opening act
Versa
(artist Monika Hauck and musician Alex Ricci), who
performed a series of instrumental songs driven by
drums and bass with an effects pedal, delivering mid
1970’s Hawkwind soundtracks to a backdrop of painting,
which was projected onto a screen courtesy of a series
of camcorders. The addition of a sax player a few
tunes in added to the mix developing into a free form
jazz session with both distortion and the higher
pitched delivery over the bass/drum line creating a
different dimension. With each tune resulting in
another painting, never has the term ‘production’
meant so much.

Hailing all the way from Sackville, New Brunswick
‘queer neo-grunge duo’ Lucy Niles and Josée (Choder)
Caron had expanded to a five piece as
Partner stormed
through an 11 song set strong on teenage angst, love,
sex, drugs, friendship and a whole lot more. Each song
provided a brief insight into each subject and
highlighted some excellent song writing/vocals as
‘Hash’, Personal Weekend’ and ‘let the Chips Fall
Where They May’ were beautifully delivered and then
despatched. Despite the rapid song turnover the band
still found time for some self-deprecating humour that
only endeared them even more to a growing and
appreciative audience. Using a borrowed lighter to add
slide guitar to the mix showed both versatility and
creativity to change the mood, but retain the
interest. ‘Everybody Knows you’re High’ followed as
did a new tune ‘Play the field’ before the last song
‘Ambassadors of Ecstasy’ cut too short an exceptional
set.

SynBrit Rating: 4/5

More?

Website:PartnerTwitter: @partner_bandYou Tube:Everybody Knows You're High
Occasionally and I mean very rarely, do we find we’ve
reached the end of a set and haven’t made any notes.
Beliefs achieved that rare distinction with a set that
was as intense as it was unexpected. Delivering a
driving set of Cure–esque proportions and based on a
platform of atmospheric vox, power drumming,
jangly/distorted guitars and rock solid bass lines, we
were blown away, If you don’t believe us then click
the links below as be as impressed as we were. In case
you were wondering, yes we bought music

SynBrit Rating: 4/5

More?

Site:BeliefsTwitter: @wearebeliefsYou Tube:Leave With You
The briefing note described Toronto based
Soupcans as
a ‘Noisy aggro garage punk trio’ and they got that
right. The band consisting of, Dean M'Allon, Juicy G
and Giovanni Ricci
tore through a high octane set of short songs, some
new and some from their latest release ‘Soft Party’.
As with many Punk bands these days, their influences
show through o occasion and the Black Sabbath elements
made the overall sound much heavier in places. In
terms of vocals, a high pitched shouted delivery
belied the actual structure of the songs, which are
very strong and show a deeper talent.

Closing the evening in spectacular fashion were
Duchess Says from Montreal, listed as ‘Dance-punk
veterans’, which was a perfect description for what
was to come. From the moment she took the stage,
Annie-Claude Deschenes didn’t so much deserve your
attention as she dared you to look away. Through a set
that contained ‘Narcisse’, ‘Mayskovsky’ and ‘I
Repeat’, the sound was epitomised by pounding dance
bass lines, almost barked vocals to full on punk
vocals and worm boring tunes that once in your head,
stayed there. The theme of audience participation
continued with the Deschenes physically commanding the
floor, which lead to the audience being seated
throughout the new single ‘Negative Thoughts’ and
shortly thereafter had the crowd on stage. The carnage
continued with ‘Cut Up’, which then saw Deschenes
physically transported, on someone’s shoulders, to
destroy part of the cloud art displayed. ’Black Flag’
then brought the house down before the set closed out
with the audience yelling for more. If you like Joy
Division, Siouxsie and A Certain Ratio, you will love
this band. If you don’t like those bands, you will
still like this band, just see them, just don’t make
direct eye contact with Deschenes as may never look
away….